


Baby in the Corner

by ginger_mosaic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Mark of Cain, Post-Season/Series 10, all subtext is intentional, rated M for mature language mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 08:18:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9429581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginger_mosaic/pseuds/ginger_mosaic
Summary: Dean has been taken apart and put back together so many times over the years that he is sure parts are missing. And the parts that are left don’t even work sometimes, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for depression and suicidal thoughts. They are subtle, but they are there, and I don’t want anyone to get blindsided.

Dean has been taken apart and put back together so many times over the years that he is sure parts are missing. And the parts that are left don’t even work sometimes, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. His lungs don’t take in enough air and he finds himself kneeling on the floor, gasping for breath. His forearm itches, and when he scratches it, he can’t feel the rough edges of his fingernails against his own skin. His heart feels cold in his hollow chest, and his head gets fuzzy, and he forgets where he is sometimes. When he looks in the mirror, he’s afraid of what he might see. Black eyes and bloody hands. He avoids his own eyes in the rearview mirror.

Driving is difficult these days.

“Why aren’t we taking the Impala?” asks Sam.

Dean stops next to the old Ford model—a 1958 Ford Galaxie, blue with a gray roof—with the keys in the door already. His blood runs cold, and his heart has to beat double-time to heat it back up. “Come on, Sam,” he says, putting on impatience and irritation and hoping his voice is even. “I worked on this all week. Might as well take it for a spin.”

Sam frowns. Dean wipes his palms on his jeans.

“And Baby needs a break,” he adds, and he immediately regrets it, but Sam shrugs and walks to the passenger’s side of the Ford. Dean’s heart pounds up into his throat, where it’s got no business being, and he swallows down a wave of nausea. He wishes his body would just _work_.

 

* * *

 

 

Cas pulls up at the motel in his pimpmobile—that dumb 1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V that he gets so defensive about and made them waste a few weeks tracking down—and has the balls to frown at the Galaxie.

“Where is your car?” he asks.

“Hey to you, too, Cas,” Dean growls, pushing off the Ford where he was leaning on it and heading to the motel office. Everyone has stupid opinions about cars these days.

He books a room and kills some time half-heartedly flirting with the woman at the front desk and reading some of the tourist pamphlets next to the door, but eventually he’s stalled too long and he has to go back out to where Sam and Cas are waiting by the cars with their duffle bags.

“106,” he says, tossing the keys to Sam. “Back corner room. Two queens and a pull out.”

Sam nods and shoulders his bag, but Cas stays next to the Continental and waits for Dean to pull his things out of the trunk of the Galaxie. It’s not nearly as nice as the Impala. The trunk is too small and it doesn’t handle as well, and Dean misses Baby.

“How are you, Dean?” asks Cas.

“Fine, Cas,” he grits out. He shuts the trunk more roughly than is strictly necessary and feels Cas’s judgmental gaze on his back. Dean ignores him and heads toward their room without looking back.

Sam has already claimed the bed closest to the bathroom, if his upended duffle on it is any indication, which is a load of bull shit. He knows the rules.

“Counting your chickens, don’t you think?” says Dean when Sam wanders out of the bathroom.

Sam frowns at him, and when Dean nods toward the bed, he gives a nod of comprehension and shrugs.

“I was looking for one of the lore books,” he says. “But I think we left it behind. I’ll repack.”

“No, whatever,” says Dean. “I’ll just take the pull out.” It’s not like his body can possibly get more fucked up than it already is.

Sam frowns. “You sure?” His eyes flick to a point behind Dean. “Good news, Cas. You get the other bed.”

Dean glances at Cas out of the corner of his eye. The dude is still staring at him. As always.

“Did Dean already lose rock-paper-scissors?” asks Cas.

Yeah. Sure. The rock-paper-scissors of life.

“Just put your monkey suit on,” says Dean. “We’ve got work to do.”

 

* * *

 

 

Every time is a roll of the dice. A rock-paper-scissors game against the god of chance. Will the levy break? Will everything fall to shit this time?

Will Dean lose another piece of himself?

He sits staring at the steering wheel, trying to control his breathing. His pulse is pounding in his head, and he’s just trying to keep it together. One of them has to. He can’t get them out of this if he loses his head. Focus. _Focus_. Breathe. For Christ’s sake, _breathe_.

He gets out of the car and goes around to the hood, but he can’t open it. He can’t look. He pushes it back down, gets back in, and grips the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white and his breathing is even, and he turns the key in the ignition. It stutters. Once. Twice. A third time.

“Come on, come on,” Dean mutters. “You got this.”

He grips the key and takes a deep breath—in and out, in and out, like that dumb book Sam got him said—and when he tries again, the engine turns over. Dean releases a relieved sigh that stutters on its way out and switches gears into drive and gets back on the road. He drives fast because it feels like a race against time. He drives fast because if he breaks down again, he’ll have to call Sam for help, and _Sam can’t know_.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s all his fault. Those months of neglect back when he was—when he had black eyes, that must have done it. He didn’t care about anything back then—not about responsibility or what people thought of him, nothing—and as far as he was concerned, he was finally doing what he wanted. Beholden to no man or object of sentimental value. Nothing could challenge his self-worth. But even that was just an illusion and all his self-destructive behavior was finally coming back to him and hitting him where it would hurt the most. Finally, it had happened, and it wasn’t something he could fix.

Sam finds him with his hands gripping the steering wheel, his head pressed to the center of it. His brother opens the door and slides into the passenger seat silently. For a while, he just sits there quietly, and Dean tries to regulate his breathing without making too much noise, but he has no idea if he’s succeeding.

“Dean,” says Sam at last, and Dean can _hear_ the pitiful look he’s giving him.

“Go upstairs, Sam,” he growls, or tries to, but his voice cracks like he’s going through puberty again, and Sam doesn’t move.

“Dean, what’s going on?” asks Sam.

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. Everything’s gone wrong. He’s not certain he even feels anymore.

“She’s not working, Sammy. Baby won’t move.”

Scratch that; it’s not that he can’t feel. He’s feeling too much. There’s a great big piece of his middle carved out, and he feels the empty space all too well, like a giant bruise aching where the pieces of him are missing and he’s empty empty empty and it _hurts_.

“What do you mean?” asks Sam, an edge of panic sliding his voice up half an octave. “What’s wrong with her?”

Sam looks around the car, like he’ll find the problem there, and Dean can’t bring himself to look Sam in the eye. The _problem_ is on the _inside_. He’s not gonna _see_ it.

“Her engine,” he hears himself say. “I just… No matter what I do, she keeps breaking down.”

Sam’s stare is unbearable. Well, now he knows why Dean has been “test driving” the cars in the bunker to go on hunts. He’s only taken the Impala short distances in the last few weeks because he can’t trust her to not break down on a hunt. Or maybe she doesn’t trust him anymore.

He was about to take her on a grocery run, just like last week, but unlike last week, she didn’t even make it out of the bunker’s garage.

“Let me look,” Sam demands, and Dean finally lifts his head to shoot Sam an annoyed frown.

“What, like you’ll find anything I didn’t?” he barks. “I know my car, Sam.”

“So do I, Dean,” says Sam, his jaw set stubbornly. “And I _might_ find something. You’re upset, and two heads are better than one.”

Dean opens his mouth to argue, but then Sam snaps, “Damn it, Dean, Baby is my home, too,” and Dean stares at him and forgets what his argument was. Sam glares until Dean reaches down to pop the hood, and then Sam gets out and goes around to the front. Dean sits in the driver’s seat and stares at the black hood of the Impala. She’s dirty from the road, and Dean’s been too busy trying to figure out how to fix her insides to clean her up. He probably doesn’t look much better; he hasn’t gotten much sleep since she first broke down at the gas station in Lebanon last month. Thank God he’d just been picking up pizza and neither Cas nor Sam were with him. Dean didn’t want them to know there was a problem. They’ve been through enough. He couldn’t burden them with this, too.

Sam drags Dean’s tool box over and tinkers with the engine, and Dean can’t bear to watch him. He leans to the side until he’s lying down across the bench seat and curls up as much as he can to keep anything else from falling out of him.

He doesn’t notice when the clinks and clanks of Sam working on Baby’s engine stop until Sam is standing at the driver’s door and looking down at him.

“Dean,” he says quietly, and Dean closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Then he sits up and climbs out of the car.

Sam leads him around to the front, where they both stare down at the Impala’s engine. Finally, Sam clears his throat.

“I don’t know what to do,” says Sam, still very quiet. “It’s… It’s not something I know how to fix.”

Dean swallows. He’s pretty sure even Bobby couldn’t fix this. If it were any other car, Bobby might say to… but God, Dean can’t even think it.

“We could replace her engine,” says Sam.

Dean snaps his head around to glare at him. “That’s her _heart_ , Sam,” he says. “I’m not replacing her _heart_. It’s the only original part she’s got.”

Sam frowns. “What about her body? You always just reshaped her.”

“I don’t care about bodies, Sam!” Dean shouts, and Sam’s eyes widen. Dean winces and looks away. “Fuck,” he spits.

“Dean,” says Sam gently, “if we don’t replace her engine… she won’t run again.”

Fuck.

“We can’t give up on her, Dean.”

Fuck.

“Where are we gonna get the money for an engine, huh, Sam?” he mutters.

“We can take the one out of the Galaxie,” Sam suggests.

“No,” Dean snaps. “I fucking hate that car.”

Sam is silent for a while. “We’ll think of something,” he says, that old stubbornness back. He’s not going to let this go.

Dean’s not sure if he’s relieved or not.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a few more days before Dean musters the courage to go back down to the bunker’s garage, and he only manages with a fifth of whiskey clutched in his fist.

He hears the door open somewhere behind him, and then heavy footed steps down the stairs, but he doesn’t turn away from the Impala. Cas comes up next to him and stops. He doesn’t say anything, and Dean can feel his intense gaze on him as always, like he’s trying to stare into Dean’s soul or something.

“What’s up, Cas?” he croaks at last, unable to stand the silence any longer.

“Sam told me you’d be down here,” says Cas.

“Wow,” says Dean. “Kid must be psychic or something.”

Cas frowns at him, and okay, yeah, low blow.

“How are you, Dean?” he asks.

Dean swallows and gestures to the Impala with the hand holding the whiskey bottle. “Baby’s not looking so good, Cas,” he manages.

“I didn’t ask about Baby,” says Cas, turning to face him fully, and Dean keeps his eyes resolutely on the car.

“Yeah, well,” says Dean, and then he doesn’t know what else to say, so he takes a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle. He hadn’t bothered with a glass.

Cas sighs next to him, and it’s still weird sometimes when he makes such _human_ gestures. Things were a lot easier when he was just an emotionless winged jerk.

When Dean was only broken in forty ways.

He goes to take another drink—or a guzzle, maybe—but Cas’s hand shoots out and covers Dean’s hand on the bottle, surprisingly gentle despite the speed of the motion. Dean meets his eyes, and Cas grimaces apologetically and drops his hand. Dean sighs and reluctantly puts the bottle down on the workbench next to him, but now he has nothing to do with his hands.

Cas sighs again. “I’m sorry, Dean,” he says. “I wish there was something I could do.”

Dean snorts out a laugh. “Well, uh, I’m pretty sure angel mojo doesn’t work on inanimate objects, so.”

Cas looks at the Impala and then, after a moment, he steps toward her. Dean watches as Cas approaches her slowly, cautiously, like she’s a wild animal, and then he stops next to her, and Dean feels an absurd surge of hope fill his throat. He tries to stomp it down, because _of course not_ , that would be _ridiculous_. But Cas still uncertainly puts a hand down on her hood, and Dean stops breathing.

Nothing happens. Cas just stands there with his hand on Baby, almost reverently, but nothing happens, and the disappointment still clenches like a vise around Dean’s heart. Or what’s left of it anyway.

Cas smiles sadly at him. “I’m afraid this is a pain my grace cannot heal,” he says.

_No fucking shit_ , Dean thinks, but he says, “Yeah,” and the word barely comes out through the thickness in his throat.

Cas stares at him for a while and walks back over. He stops just inside Dean’s personal space bubble because, as human as Cas acts these days, he still doesn’t understand personal space.

“Dean,” Cas begins, but then the door above them bangs open, and he looks up.

“Guys, I think I found something,” says Sam. “Come on.”

Cas nods and starts toward the stairs, but he stops when he notices Dean hasn’t moved from where he’s leaning against the workbench. Without a word, Cas steps back to Dean and puts a hand on his right elbow. Dean flinches, ripping his arm away, and Cas frowns and Dean’s arm itches and then a rare expression of dawning comprehension comes over Cas’s face. He reaches across Dean and takes him by the left wrist instead, gently, like Dean is a child, and pulls him to the stairs and up out of the garage, and Dean tries to ignore all the phantom pains this wakes up.

They follow Sam to the war room, where he’s got car manuals spread out everywhere on top of lore books and stacked on the floor. He plops into the chair at his laptop, and Dean takes the seat at the wide table opposite him. Cas pulls out a chair to Dean’s left, and Dean avoids looking at him.

“So, okay,” says Sam, “remember when we were at that Supernatural convention a few years ago?”

“Well, I was trying to forget, but thanks, Sam,” says Dean.

Sam bitchfaces at him, and then he turns back to his computer. “So I was on the forums, and—”

“The forums?” says Dean, incredulous. “What the hell were you doing on the forums?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Reading fanfiction about us fucking, Dean,” he says, and Dean winces. “Would you let me finish?”

Dean sneers at him, and Cas says, “That sounds like a sentence you might find in one of those fanfictions.”

Dean turns to stare at him in horror. Sam snorts.

“Anyway, get this: There’s an entire corner of the forums about the Impala,” says Sam, clacking away on his keyboard. “There are all these people completely obsessed with the car, and some people _collect_ them.”

“So?” Dean grunts, picking at the edge of a car manual that looks like its corners have been chewed by rats.

Sam scoffs in disbelief. “ _So_ ,” he says, “someone out there might have parts for her. We might be able to fix Baby, Dean.”

Dean still doesn’t look up. Sam sounds so excited and hopeful, and Dean can’t bear it. What the hell is there to hope for?

“So,” he says at last, “so, what? You’re gonna find someone on those—forums, someone who will sell us an engine? And pay for it how?”

Sam shrugs. “A few nights of hustling pool. Hell, I dunno, I’ll get a real job, for a few weeks. This is important,” he says firmly at Dean’s dubious eyebrow raise. Then he just stares at Dean for a while, and Dean rips a corner of a page of the rat-eaten car manual. “Why are you being so resistant to this?” Sam finally bursts out. “Why won’t you accept help?”

Dean feels a deep pang of regret in his gut that he left the whiskey bottle downstairs. He pushes his chair back from the table and stands up.

“Do what you gotta do, Sam,” he mutters, and then he turns and leaves the war room and goes to lie face down on his bed for a few hours.

 

* * *

 

 

When Dean gets up at two in the afternoon, Sam is on his laptop again, probably still on those damn forums even though it’s been a week and it seems like no one is willing to sell. He’s been hustling pool every night, too, a different bar every time, across state lines because you don’t shit where you eat, but he’s never been as good at it as Dean. He’s better at poker. He tries to get Dean to come with him, but even when Dean does leave the bunker to go to the bars, he just gets smashed. He tried playing one game, but he was too drunk and ended up losing a hundred bucks on it.

Cas comes with them sometimes, but he never understands how the game works and he just beats everyone in the first round, so Sam mostly just makes him chaperone Dean. It works for both of them; Cas gets to do his staring thing, and Dean gets to be stared at while he drinks himself into a stupor. It’s great.

After four days of this, Sam finally got sick of Dean vomiting up his attempts to numb himself on the side of the road (and once in Cas’s Continental, which Dean thought was funny, but he refrained from laughing too hard because Cas looked so irritated and because he was afraid he might start crying), and he stopped inviting Dean to the bars. For the last three days, Dean has just been reading and looking for simple salt’n’burns and drinking and watching Netflix with Cas. They’ve been working their way through The Office, which Cas likes for some reason, and when they need a break from that, they watch Star Trek, which at least they both like.

But now Dean can’t find Cas anywhere, and he was considering forcing him to watch Dr. Sexy, MD because he thinks Cas’s reaction to it might be funny. Cas likes The Office, and it’s not even that compelling; maybe a procedural drama would capture his interest.

Dean wanders back into the war room where Sam is typing intermittently. He suppresses a shudder; those forums give Dean the creeps.

“Hey,” he says, when Sam doesn’t look up from whatever conversation he’s focused on. Sam raises his head and nods at Dean. “Where’s Cas?”

“I think he said he was going out,” says Sam, looking right back at the screen. All right then.

Dean grunts. “Me too.”

“What?”

“I’ll be back later.”

Sam finally looks up from his laptop, and he even puts a hand on top of the screen, as though to close it. Dean suddenly really needs to get out of here. Sam’s put on his Let’s Talk face.

“Where are you going?” asks Sam.

“For a dr—To the store,” he corrects himself. He can’t go for a drive; his car is out of commission. “You want anything?”

Sam frowns at him suspiciously. Dean just raises his eyebrows until Sam sits back.

“Pick up a salad for dinner,” he says, and Dean nods and feels Sam’s eyes on his back until he turns the corner.

He ends up driving around a neighborhood in Lebanon anyway, just because he doesn’t want to go home yet. He’s in a 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air, with the top down just for the hell of it. There is no breeze besides the gentle sweep of air created by the 30 mph he’s going, and the sun is beating down on his neck, pulling beads of sweat from his hairline, but the physical discomfort is a nice distraction. He can almost forget that he’s driving the wrong Chevy, can just grip the wheel and enjoy the rough leather under his hands, the rumble and vibration of the car around him. All of these sensations had been largely absent when he’d had black eyes and when the angry hum of the Mark under his skin had drowned out everything else. He’d missed hot showers and the taste of burgers and the familiar feel of the road under wheels and casual touches. All of that had been muted next to the ever-present desire to _kill_. Now that he’s got it all back, he’s realized what he had been missing, and sometimes when he discovers a sensation, it reminds him how empty he had been. He’d been shocked the first time he touched himself after the Mark was removed, and he came embarrassingly quickly. It didn’t feel like that again, and Dean chased the feeling for a while until he realized that he’d probably never feel the same way about everything ever again. It was all tainted. He’d have moments where something was brand new and awesome again, and then he’d remember why and how this was happening and the sacrifices that had been made on his way to this point. Even the car he’s in is evidence of a sacrifice; he neglected Baby in pursuit of forgetting himself. And she wasn’t even the least of what and who he destroyed.

He slows down and considers pulling over and walking back to the bunker, because he’s enjoying this car too much, and that’s bound to be its end. He looks around for a place to leave it and does a double take when he sees a familiar vehicle parked outside a yellow two-story house.

Dean pulls over and parks across the street and stares at the Continental. How many people own those ugly ass pimp cars around here?

Just one, it turns out. The front door of the house opens, and Cas steps out, wearing blue jeans and a white Henley with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. He walks around the side of the house and disappears, and Dean just watches him, stunned. Is this where Cas goes when he’s not in the bunker? Lately he’s been pretty cagey about where he goes, but Dean just figured it was an angel thing. As Dean takes in the neatly trimmed house, with its wind chimes and bird feeders, he suddenly wonders if Cas is _seeing_ somebody. It wouldn’t necessarily be the first time, except it kind of would, so why didn’t he tell Dean about it?

Before he knows what he’s doing, Dean gets out of the car and walks across the street to get a closer look at the house. He’s just reached the front walk when Cas comes back around the corner, carrying a bucket, which he drops when he sees Dean. His eyes widen, like a deer in headlights. _Guilty_ , Dean thinks. _He looks guilty._

“Dean,” he says.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean replies. They stare at each other for a few more seconds, and then Dean clears his throat. “What, uh, what are you doing?”

Cas glances down at the bucket he dropped, and Dean follows his gaze to see that a spade, a hand cultivator, and a pair of dirty gloves have spilled out, which only adds to Dean’s confusion.

“Um,” says Cas, but before he can say much more, the front door opens again, and a blonde woman comes down the steps.

“Steve, can I ask you to clean the gutters today, too?” she says. “I think they’re—” She stops, finally taking in the two of them, and the pause allows Dean to do the same. She’s holding a glass of lemonade and is probably in her early fifties and she just called Cas “Steve” and asked him to clean the gutters of her house. For a moment, Dean’s brain works overtime to reconcile all the information into a clear explanation, and he panics when he remembers the last time Cas played at being “Steve” and _why_. He goes over the last few months in his head, but Cas still has his grace, right? After they cleared him of Rowena’s spell, he was fine, right? Unless something happened in the last week when Dean has been moping and Cas has been humoring him by watching dumb TV shows with him. Did something happen to Cas, and he just never told Dean because he thought Dean was dealing with enough? Or maybe he is fine and age just isn’t a problem for Cas and he _is_ seeing this woman? Or maybe—

“Oh, hello,” the woman says at last, and when Dean doesn’t respond because his brain isn’t moving fast enough to supply his mouth with words, she turns to Cas. “Who is this, Steve?”

“This is my… my friend, Dean,” says Cas. He looks to Dean and gestures to the woman. “Dean, this is Carol.”

“Hi,” Dean manages.

Carol smiles warmly. “Well, hi there, Dean. Steve has told me a lot about you.”

Dean glances at Cas, who looks down almost sheepishly. He would be practically scuffing the ground with his toe, if that was something Cas did.

“What brings you to the neighborhood?” Carol continues, oblivious to their discomfort.

“I, uh, I was out for… I was driving around, and I saw Steve’s car,” Dean explains, partly to Cas. He doesn’t want him to think he’s, like, stalking him or something. Which is funny because it’s not like Cas has ever given Dean the courtesy of not stalking _him._

“Well, as long as you’re here, let me get you a drink,” she says, setting the glass she’s holding on the banister surrounding her porch. “This one’s yours, Steve,” she adds with a smile. “I’ll be right back.”

“Uh, no, I—” Dean starts, but she disappears inside, calling back, “I insist!” with an inexplicable wink. Frustrated, Dean turns back to Cas and widens his eyes and spreads his hands in a wordless demand for an explanation.

Cas sighs, defeated. “Carol is my employer,” he says, meeting Dean’s eyes in that earnest way of his. “I found her ad in the paper. She was looking for a gardener. I’ve been coming here for five days.” He shifts uncomfortably. “You weren’t supposed to find out.”

Dean stares at him in disbelief. “ _Why?_ ” he asks at last.

“I want to help,” Cas replies simply.

Dean looks back at the house dubiously. “Well, uh,” he says. “Look, I know you miss your heavenly duties and everything, but gardening for the elderly is a far cry from—”

“No,” Cas interrupts him. “I meant with the Impala. I want to contribute.”

All of the feeling drops out of Dean, starting from the top of his head and rolling down to his toes. “Cas, man,” he says hoarsely, “you don’t have to—This is beneath you, you don’t gotta—”

“I want to,” says Cas firmly. “You worked very hard on Baby, and Sam is doing a lot of research and hustling pool every night, and I—I want to help.”

This is too much. It’s Dean’s fault Baby is broken in the first place, and now everyone else is picking up the pieces. He didn’t miss the part where his own “contribution” was in the past tense either; while Sam and Cas have been working hard over the last week, Dean has just been moping and drinking. He hasn’t been doing _anything_ to help, and Cas, even though he’s got his grace back, has been doing this menial labor for probably very little pay.

“Cas, if this is about you being useful,” says Dean quietly, “‘cause, man, we talked about that—”

“No, Dean,” says Cas, gently. “It’s not. I do like feeling useful, but this is for… for Baby.” He looks straight into Dean’s eyes. “She is very important to you and Sam. And so she is very important to me.” Dean doesn’t know what to say to that. “Please let me help,” says Cas quietly.

Dean swallows hard and, after a moment, nods. “Okay,” he says.

Cas smiles softly, and Dean hates the pity in it, and he hates it even more when Cas says, “Thank you,” like Dean is doing him a favor.

Cas leans down and picks up the bucket and gardening tools again and goes to the flower beds surrounding the foot of the raised porch. Dean watches him pull on the gloves and feels something heavy pulling at his gut, like back when he had to watch Cas walks away to clean the bathrooms at the Gas-n-Sip. He shouldn’t have had to do that either; if Dean had been braver, had been better, Cas could have stayed at the bunker.

“D’you need a hand?” asks Dean, because he can’t ask Cas to do this, to pick up the pieces again. He can’t.

Apparently he has to; Cas shakes his head. “This is something I have to do,” he says, and Dean _knew_ it was about the usefulness thing. “Besides,” Cas adds thoughtfully, “I like gardening.”

“Okay,” says Dean. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I’ll just, um, I’ll—”

But before he can take his leave, running with his tail tucked between his legs, Carol comes back out with a second glass of lemonade.

“Here you go,” she says cheerily, and Dean takes it numbly.

“Thanks,” he says, and he moves to set it on the banister next to the other glass. “But I should get going. I, uh…” But he can’t think of an excuse, and Carol waves her hand, startling Dean into tightening his grip on the glass.

“No, no, stay,” she says, beaming at him. “You can keep Steve company. I’ve got some accounts to work on inside, so holler if you need me.”

Dean glances at Cas, who shrugs. “I don’t mind if you stay,” he says, and he gestures to the porch steps.

“Well, great,” says Carol, still beaming back and forth at the two of them. “I’ll just be inside.”

Dean stares after her as she goes back inside her house, frowning. When he turns back around, Cas is kneeling down in front of the planter and starting to pull weeds.

“Cas,” says Dean slowly, lowering his voice, “what exactly did you tell her about me?”

Cas glances up at him. “Nothing,” says Cas. “I told her about Baby. And that we live together and you always do so much to take care of me and I wanted to return the favor.”

Dean sighs. Yeah, okay. That would do it. But whatever, he’s over people making assumptions about him. He’s too old and has too many other things to think about to worry about that shit.

It’s also not _true_ ; Dean doesn’t take care of Cas. He puts him through hell and yells at him and nearly stabs him in the face with his own angel blade. He’s given him the Winchester curse. He’s never done or been a goddamn good thing for Cas, and now he’s on his knees, digging in the dirt for weeds. How the mighty have been brought low by the likes of Dean Winchester, the Righteous Man. Fuck.

Dean steps back and lowers himself onto the middle step of the porch, cradling the lemonade glass between his palms. Cas works silently to his right, gently coaxing tiny sprigs of green out to the roots and tossing them into the bucket. Dean takes a sip of lemonade. It’s a bit too sweet—probably the way Cas likes it; he seems to lean toward extremes in flavors, whether it’s too salty or too bitter or too sweet, when he does consume anything—but the coolness feels nice and takes some of the edge off the heat. He runs his fingers through the condensation on the outside.

“If you like gardening, we could set up a garden in the bunker,” says Dean after a while. “Or on top of it. There’s plenty of space.”

Cas smiles up at him. “That would be nice,” he says. He looks back down and seems to contemplate the dirt for a little while. “It’s satisfying work,” he says at last. “It’s nothing at all like when I worked at the Gas-n-Sip. This is… I like watching things grow. Helping them grow.” He throws some more weeds into the bucket. “And it clears my mind.”

“’Cause it’s working with your hands,” says Dean, and Cas looks back up at him and tilts his head quizzically, so Dean elaborates. “It makes you focus,” he says, gesturing. “You’ve got a thing to do, and it’s right there in front of you, all tangible and everything. And when you’re done, you’ve got the result right there, too, like you really made some sort of mark on the world.”

Cas nods, solemnly. “I see,” he says. “Yes, I think that’s it.”

He hums to himself thoughtfully, taking Dean’s whole speech way too seriously, and then Cas speaks again.

“That’s why you enjoy working with cars,” he says, and then nods to himself. “You like being able to make things work again.”

Dean scoffs. “Sure, Cas,” he says, taking another sip of lemonade. “Until I can’t.”

Because that’s the thing. Besides fixing cars, he’s never been able to do anything right. He’s fucked up in so many ways, hurt so many people, but cars—he’s never fucked up with cars. Until now. But it’s something he’d always been good at. Something that wasn’t killing. Something that seemed to add to him, rather than subtract.

And if he can’t fix Baby, maybe all he’s good for is killing. So why did they bother removing the Mark anyway?

“You’ll fix her, Dean,” says Cas, and when Dean looks at him, he’s watching Dean with such strong conviction that Dean has to look away. “I have faith in you.”

Dean looks down at the half empty glass in his hands. He doesn’t deserve that faith. Not after what he’s done. Not after what he’s become. Empty. Worthless.

Maybe nothing has changed after all.

“You mustn’t give up, Dean,” says Cas softly. He’s still kneeling on the dirt, pulling weeds.

“Yeah,” he finds himself saying, just for something to fill the emptiness of the silence between them. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

 

It takes him another week, but he finally sits down with Sam’s laptop, tucked away in the library where he can get some privacy. Sam went for his second run of the day, to “clear his head” or whatever, and Cas went to work (ugh), so it’s just Dean and the internet in the bunker for a few hours. He pulls up the forum page that Sam bookmarked, his stomach tight and heavy, like it’s being pulled inward into a dense ball, but he forces himself to click through.

Sam wasn’t kidding; there are several threads entirely dedicated to the Impala: _Care and Keeping of, Symbolic Significance, Classic Cars in Supernatural_ , and another subtopic titled “Auto Erotica” that Dean doesn’t _get_ until he opens it and then has to immediately click away. He wishes he could clear the browser history in his mind, because those images probably won’t be going away any time soon.

He clicks on the _Care and Keeping of Impalas_ link and scrolls down, skimming the page. There are a lot of people looking to buy—even one douche who’s apparently got six models already and is going for a record—but there aren’t a lot of sell posts. A few other people are looking for parts, too, though nothing as big as an engine. He sees a post asking how to wire up a ’94 with an iPod jack, and he pops in to reply with, “A ’94 is douchey enough without an iPod. Get a real music player,” because he _hates_ the sound quality of iPods and he _might_ be an audiophile. “And a real Impala,” he adds, because that was the year they stopped looking like real cars.

It’s only after he posts that he sees the username Sam chose for this undercover account: Billy Pilgrim. He snorts. It’s better than “samlicker81,” who has their name all over the boards and a little icon next to their name of “mod” surrounded by flames. Dean’s trying to ignore all the Dean-related usernames he scrolls past. (Apparently there are not one, not two, but _three_ “deanriders” if “deanrider3” is any indication.)

He’s scrolling through posts again when the bottom right corner of the screen starts blinking red at him. When he clicks on the red box, it opens up a side chat. Someone whose username is “allinthesubtext” has messaged him: _imo the 60s were the only years of real impalas_.”

Dean doesn’t know what “imo” means, but the rest of the message resonates with him.

_the 70s were alright_ , he writes back.

_what year is yours?_ “subtext” asks.

_67._

_damn! lucky u. mine is a 68. my dad couldn’t find a 67._

_too bad its not a 69_ , he jokes.

_gross_ , they reply. Okay, must be a woman. Or a girl, he realizes a little guiltily. No more sex jokes and _definitely_ no flirting, then. Especially since he’s on the _goddamn Supernatural forums, what the hell is he even doing?_

They type for a while, a pencil icon sliding across the screen to indicate it, apparently not too turned off by his dumb joke, and then: _how did u find a 67??_

_it was my dads_ , Dean writes, before realizing that he shouldn’t. He probably should have looked through Sam’s posts and messages to see what his cover story has been so far.

_!!!_ Subtext sends. _just like the books!_

Shit.

_right?_ Dean sends back, channeling (as painful as it is) his inner Charlie. _totes a crazy coincidence._

Okay, so his impressions suck.

_and let me guess: ur dad was a hunter and now you travel around the country fighting monsters_.

_lol_ , Dean writes. _story of my life_.

God, that was painful. Only Cas ever uses “lol,” and Dean’s not even sure he knows how to use it correctly, like a kid using “fuck” for the first time.

The other user doesn’t say anything for a while, so Dean goes back through the topics to search for any posts Sam may have made. He eventually finds the archive of posts and messages attached to his username, and it looks like Sam has already talked to a few people, trying to enlist help in restoring his dad’s ’67 Impala (okay, so not a slip up on Dean’s part), unfortunately including the guy who already owns six. Apparently he tried to convince Sam to sell him Baby because “it’s broken anyway, you might as well give it to me.”

“She’s not for sale,” Sam replied, and there are no more messages between them.

Sam hasn’t had much luck with anyone else, and Dean is ready to shut the laptop and get himself a drink and a marathon of Columbo when the chat with allinthesubtext blinks again.

_hey, I saw ur post. ur car broke down??_ They also send several sad face emojis.

_yeah_ , Dean types. _been looking for a new engine for her. or my brother has. this is his account._

_that's too bad_ , they say, adding another sad face. _have u tried other car forums? people here r pretty attached to their impalas_.

_he thought this was the best bet._

_well the concentration alone…_ The pencil moves back and forth for a while. _well dont give up_ , they say finally. _there's gotta be someone out there who wants to sell. people gotta pay student loans._

_thats what everyone keeps telling me_ , Dean says. He hears the door to the bunker slam closed in the distance. _gtg_ , he types, and he closes the browser and then the laptop. He’s not sure why he feels so guilty, but either way, he high tails it out of there to go hide in his room again, before whoever is home can find him.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean goes back on the forums every morning while Sam goes on his runs. Sam has made a few more posts, but he hasn’t commented on any of Dean’s, even though he must have found them. They seem to be at a standstill about it. Sam hasn’t even mentioned the forums in a few days. He just runs, and Dean surreptitiously logs on and scurries away whenever he or Cas comes back in. He’s even stopped drinking so much at night so he can wake up early enough without a hangover to troll for… whatever he’s doing on these things.

Mostly, he’s talking to allinthesubtext.

_don't get me wrong, I like the movie, I just think it could have been resolved better_ , they’re saying, talking about the newest Marvel movie. Dean made Cas watch it with him last night, at allinthesubtext’s behest, so he sort of knows what they’re talking about.

_i thought it was alright_ , he says.

_well the plot of Tony Stark’s ptsd was good_ , they say. _I always wanted more of that from the Supernatural books._

_uh huh_ , says Dean, because over the last few days, he’s found that it’s better to just agree with them when it comes to the books. He doesn’t really like to talk about them, and allinthesubtext seems to just like to hear themselves talk. Or type, as it were.

_I mean, especially in the unpublished manuscripts, when Dean comes back from hell_ , they say.

_yeah, that sucked_ , says Dean, scrolling through a thread about car maintenance. Some of these people need serious help; he leaves a few tips.

_or like when Sam came back from hell sans soul in the unpublished unpublished books_ , they say, _and Dean got stuck in purgatory and became a demon._

Dean feels a rock sink down in his stomach. As much as he constantly reminds himself of that, he really doesn’t like to be reminded of it.

_right, that was rough_ , he sends back, hoping they don’t dwell on it. It appears that they don’t; they stop messaging for a few minutes (probably to jet off to class or something; they’re a college student), and Dean focuses on telling “notatulpa” how to fix a dent in the passenger side door of their recently purchased 1989 Impala.

_wait_ , allinthesubtext suddenly messages, after five minutes of inactivity.

_……….Dean???_

Dean stares at the screen. _huh?_ he finally types.

_is this Dean??_ they ask. Dean blinks and frowns, but they’re already typing again. _and don’t mess with me, I’m not rping_.

_who is this?_ he demands, and then, absurdly: _r u a demon?_

_are YOU?_ they shoot back. _it's marie. from the musical._

Dean feels his blood rush so quickly out of his face that he feels dizzy. For a moment, he just stares at the screen, numb, and then he’s scrolling up and trying to figure it out. It doesn’t take long; only a few lines up, she mentioned all the shit he told her back at her school. He had been so distracted trying not to think that he _didn’t think_. Shit. Shit.

The blood comes all rushing back as he realizes that he’s been messaging her for two weeks pretty consistently, and he knows he’s probably divulged some pretty pathetic thoughts. He’s just been whining about his car, but that feels really pathetic and intimate, for some reason, now that it’s someone who knows who he is. Fuck. He fell into the internet anonymity trap, didn’t he?

He finds himself pacing and can’t remember getting up. When he sits back down, he scrubs a hand over his jaw and sees that allinthesubtext— _Marie_ —has sent several messages.

_is this really Dean?_

_holy crap it is. I just looked thru our messages._

_are u there?_

_hello?_

The last message comes just as Dean reads the previous one:

_I’m calling u. right now._

Dean still jumps when a phone rings somewhere behind him. He turns in his chair and stares at the box of burner phones they have stashed for jobs. Sometimes they ditch them, if a case goes especially bad, but if they don’t, they label them appropriately and toss them in the box.

Dean walks over numbly. The phone that’s ringing has a business card taped to it that reads “FBI. Agents ~~Rhodes and Carter~~ Smith and Smith.”

Dean picks it up. “How did you get this number?” he growls into it.

“You gave me your card, assbutt,” says Marie. Then, after a beat: “Oh my God, it’s really you.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. At least she’s not Becky. “How did you…”

“Well, aside from the obvious, you’ve said some things,” she says. “And nothing a roleplayer would really say, you know? Like, we all have our headcanons, but you’ve got the speech patterns and none of the usual liberties RPers take.”

“Speech patterns?” says Dean dubiously.

“I’m studying linguistics,” she says, rather haughtily.

Dean snorts. “I thought you’d be studying theater or something.”

“Well, I’m double majoring.” She pauses. “Does that mean Baby is really…”

Dean rubs a hand over his face. Christ. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she sounds genuinely sympathetic and Dean realizes that it’s the first time anyone’s expressed anything like condolences to him. “That sucks,” she says, and Dean nods even though she couldn’t possibly see it, because if he opens his mouth he might cry.

“Yeah,” he manages anyway, after she’s quiet for a while. “Well, that’s why we—why Sam joined the forums. Trust me, we wouldn’t be anywhere near those things otherwise,” he grumbles.

“That sounds like the tone of a man who found fanart,” she says.

“Shut up.”

Marie laughs. “So, uh, does that mean you’re…” She trails off, and Dean waits because he has no idea what she’s implying.

“What?” he asks irritably.

“Like… how are you feeling?” asks Marie.

Empty is the first word that comes to mind. “Fine,” he grunts.

“Oh. Well, it’s just…”

“What?” he demands again.

Marie sighs. “So, like, in the books, the state of the Impala always symbolically represents Dean’s mental state. Like when he smashes the car after John dies, it’s because—”

“Okay, all right, Freud, stop right there,” Dean cuts in, anger rising to the surface. “You don’t get to psychoanalyze me, got it? You don’t know me. I’m not your favorite character, I’m a real goddamn person.”

“Sam’s my favorite,” says Marie.

“What?” Dean sputters.

“Never mind,” she says quickly. “It doesn’t matter. You’re right. I’m sorry.” Again, she sounds genuinely contrite.

“Yeah, well, I just don’t appreciate people digging too deep into my life,” he snarls. “And I friggin’ hate those books.”

“I know,” says Marie. “I’m sorry.”

She’s quiet for a while, and Dean is still silently fuming. This is all so humiliating. He feels like someone read his diary all over again.

“Is there anything I can do?” asks Marie at last. “To help with Baby?”

Dean sighs, and the fight whooshes out of him with his breath. He sinks down into a chair in the corner of the room.

“I don’t think so, kid,” he says, scrubbing his hand over his face again.

“Okay,” says Marie kindly. “Well, I’ll be on the forums. Sorry your cover was blown, but it _was_ your fault.”

“I know,” he admits. “I was distracted. And that was smooth.”

“I try,” she says, and he can hear the smirk. “But your secret’s safe with me, Billy Pilgrim,” she adds more seriously.

“Thanks,” says Dean sincerely. It’s not like anyone would believe her anyway, but he appreciates the sentiment. He pulls the phone away from his ear to hang up, but then she speaks again, almost frantically.

“Wait! Dean!”

He freezes and closes his eyes. He’d _better_ end up in heaven again when he finally kicks it; he has the patience of a saint.

“Yeah?”

“Is… Is Sam there?” she asks, too casually. Dean rolls his eyes.

“He’s on a run,” Dean tells her.

“Like a beer run?” asks Marie confusedly. “What time is it where you guys are?”

“No, a _run_ run,” says Dean, although a beer sort of sounds nice right now. Maybe something stronger. “Like, exercise.”

“Oh,” says Marie, sounding taken aback. “Since when does he do that?”

“There was this… thing,” says Dean, waving his hand vaguely. “It’s a long story. He’s always been a health nut.”

“That’s true,” Marie agrees knowledgeably, as though she’s talking about someone she’s known her whole life. Dean rolls his eyes again. “What about… Castiel?” she asks, again too casually, and he glares at the wall in lieu of Marie.

“He’s around,” Dean grunts.

“That’s great!” she says, a little too excitedly. “So he didn’t go back up to heaven? What happened with—”

“All right, look,” Dean cuts in again, “I get that you’re passionate about this shit, I do, but I’m not gonna sit here and divulge the _rest_ of my life story to you.”

“Right, sorry,” she says quickly. “It’s just…” She sighs, kind of in the same way Sam does, and Dean feels a speech coming. “I know you’re not just characters in books, but there _are_ books about you, like it or not, and you have _fans_. It’s like with celebrities. There’s this thing called parasocial interaction, and we don’t really know you, but we _feel_ like we do, okay? And we _care_ about you. We want you to be happy.” She pauses, then, with emphasis, she says: “There are so many people out there who care about you, Dean.”

A lukewarm numbness takes over him then, and he sits there, with the phone to his ear, unable to move. _You shouldn’t care_ , he wants to tell her. _You don’t know what I’ve done_.

God, what would she say if she knew that he had tried to kill her favorite with a hammer?

What is there to care about anyway? There’s nothing left of him now. Nothing left to care about. He’s missing too many pieces, like an old puzzle. If you shook him out of his box and tried to put him together, you’d give up quickly after you realized there aren’t enough pieces to make a full picture. There would be gaps in the image. You might as well throw it out.

God, if their fans only knew—They would have given up on him a long time ago.

“Dean?” asks Marie tentatively. “You there?”

Dean swallows and comes back to himself slowly, but there are still empty spaces. “You give everyone that pep talk or am I just special?” he tries to joke, but it comes out in a mutter.

“Well, I am a stage director,” she says. “But I meant it.”

“Yeah, I got it,” he says, if only to shut her up. _We care about you._ He doesn’t deserve that regard. Fuck. “Shouldn’t you be in class or something?” he adds.

He can practically hear her eyeroll. “I only have an evening class today.”

“What are you doing on the forums anyway?” he asks. “You should be studying.”

Marie groans. “Okay, _Dad_. Jeez.” Suddenly, she gasps. “Wait, so you’re, what, in your late thirties now?”

Dean scowls. “Excuse you. Mid to… late… thirties,” he grumbles.

“So, like,” she says excitedly, “maybe Baby’s breakdown symbolizes your midlife crisis! Are you having a midlife crisis?”

“I’m hanging up now,” he tells her, annoyed.

“Right. Okay,” he hears her say, and then he does hang up, but he still doesn’t move from this seat. He tosses the phone back into the box and sits there, still feeling numb.

That’s where Sam finds him when he returns from his run. Dean has no idea how long it’s been since he hung up on Marie. He feels cold and embarrassed and hot and enraged at himself in turns. God, what a fucking idiot. He’s such a fucking idiot.

“Hey, you okay?” asks Sam when he walks in, freshly showered, and Dean doesn’t say anything to acknowledge him.

He can’t even bring himself to shrug, but he does manage a moment of panic when he realizes Sam’s laptop is still open and Dean never closed the chat window with Marie. He glances at the screen and realizes too late that was a mistake. Sam frowns and walks around the table to the computer, and Dean leaps up and closes the browser altogether before Sam can see. When he straightens again, Sam is staring at him with a mixture of concern and annoyance.

“Dude,” says Sam.

“How was your run?” Dean blurts out, which is a stupid question. Awful, obviously.

Sam’s frown deepens. “Did something happen?” he asks.

“No.”

Sam just purses his lips and watches Dean, and then he sighs. “Look, Dean,” he begins.

“You know what?” says Dean. “I’m still tired. I’m going back to bed.”

Before he can start toward the door, though, Sam grabs his arm. Dean jumps and rips away from Sam’s grip.

“Jesus,” says Sam, eyes wide and hands immediately going up. “Dean—”

“Sorry,” says Dean, hoping to stave off any further questions, rubbing a hand over his face again.

Sam leaves his hands up for a second longer and then slowly lowers them. “It’s okay,” he says. “But look, Cas and I are worried about you, man.”

“I’m fine,” Dean grits out, and obviously Sam doesn’t believe him.

“You’re really not, though.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“We do, though,” says Sam, grimacing apologetically. “Because we care about you.”

_We care about you_.

God fucking damn it.

Dean scrubs a hand over his face. “I’m tired, Sam,” he says.

“All right,” says Sam softly. “But I wish you would talk to us.”

Dean nods. He gets it, he really does, but if he talks, he’s not going to be able to hold it together. He didn’t want them to know in the first place. He doesn’t want anyone to know anything. He just wants to not be broken to begin with.

He ends up spending the rest of the day in bed, but he can’t fall asleep because he’s broken even in his dreams.

 

* * *

 

 

They take a case, and Sam is even up front about it being for getting Dean out of the bunker and doing something productive. They take Cas’s Continental down to Texas to take out a chupacabra, and Sam spends the entire trip delegating and bossing Dean around. Cas has picked up the annoying habit of finding the most irritating pop radio station and refusing to let Dean change it or put in his tapes, so at their second rest stop, Dean gives up and moves to the back seat so he can ignore the both of them.

“You’re the one who made the rule, Dean,” says Sam, sighing and dropping into the passenger’s seat.

“I thought we might listen to some happy music,” says Cas.

“Metallica _is_ my happy music,” says Dean, crossing his arms petulantly and bending his knees to put his feet up against the back of Cas’s seat. “Not that Taylor Swift shit.”

“You like Taylor Swift,” Cas points out, and Dean scowls at the back of his head, because he is pretty sure they all agreed to never mention that out loud. “And get your feet off the upholstery,” Cas adds.

Dean pushes off against the seat just to annoy him, and Cas turns around to glare. Dean aggressively ignores him for four hours, only responding to Sam, and even then he only mocks him.

When they roll into town and reach a motel, Sam goes in to get a room, and Cas gets out and goes around to the passenger’s side to open the back door behind Dean’s head. He frowns down at Dean where he’s lying in the back seat, and Dean drums on his stomach for a few more seconds before finally meeting his eyes.

“You’re behaving like a child,” says Cas.

“Compared to you,” Dean retorts. “You’re like a bajillion years old.”

“I don’t know what you expect to accomplish with this behavior,” Cas continues, ignoring him, “but since we have arrived, you are now officially on duty as a hunter. Please be professional.”

Cas has never— _never_ —questioned Dean’s ability to be professional and focused on a hunt. This is what Dean _does_ , the only thing he’s good at. Cas’s doubt stings more than Dean wants to admit.

He sits up and slides over to get out of the car on the opposite side, and then he scowls at Cas over the top of his car.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” he snaps. “You may be a bajillion years old, but you’re still green at hunting. Fuck you, Cas.”

Cas’s shoulders slump, and he just looks at Dean with disappointment and pity, and Dean turns and stomps away to meet Sam at the office door.

It’s not until it all comes to a head and Dean’s “behavior” does accomplish something that he realizes what he’s been trying to do.

Their second evening in town finds them holed up in their motel room waiting for dark so they can take out the chupacabra they’ve tracked to an old farm. Dean has been sniping at Sam all day, and now Sam finally snaps. He throws down his lore book and stands up from the table where he’s sitting with Cas, with enough force that his chair falls backward with a clatter on the wood floor.

“For Christ’s sake, Dean!” he shouts. “Will you _stop_?”

And because Dean can’t help himself, he says, “ _You_ stop.”

Sam glares at him furiously, tight-lipped and fists clenching. “I’m serious, Dean. This whole hunt you’ve been acting like everything’s a huge chore. Is it really _that_ hard to accept help?”

Everything is hard. _Breathing_ is a chore. Last night, after their first round of questioning witnesses and information gathering, Dean had locked himself in the motel bathroom while Sam and Cas were asleep and hyperventilated. He had no idea _why_ , or what triggered it; his lungs just stopped working and his brain wasn’t routing involuntary functions correctly and he felt like the whole world was crashing down on him. Nothing was _right_ —not the drive over, not the way the witnesses kept looking at him like he was all important with his dumb fake badge, and least of all him.

_Pull yourself together, Winchester_ , he kept telling himself, but it wasn’t helping no matter how many times he said it, repeating it like a mantra. _Pull yourself together, Winchester._ He repeated it so many times, by the end of it, he wasn’t even sure what a Winchester was anymore.

“I never asked for your help,” Dean snaps back, feeling his hackles rise in anticipation. He’s been waiting for this all day. For retribution. For someone to yell at him. Because he deserves it. He wants Sam to get mad and give up. Regret ever caring about Dean, so he won’t anymore. So Dean can just.

Can just.

“Well, you’re fucking getting it anyway,” says Sam. “This whole hunt is for _you_ , Dean. Because this is something you can do, and I thought it would help. But you’re not even trying. I’m doing my best to help, Dean, but you’re not even trying.”

“Fuck off, Sam,” Dean shouts back. “I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t want it. Just leave me the hell alone!”

“NO,” Sam thunders. “I know you’re fucked up about Baby and everything, I get it, but I will _not_ just sit here and watch you destroy yourself.”

“Why the hell not?” Their voices are far too loud now, and Dean can hear his blood in his ears, pounding a furious rhythm that makes his vision go red and his teeth clench. “What the fuck does it matter, Sam? Why won’t you just let me rot?”

“Because I fucking love you, you jackass!” Sam roars, and then he turns and yanks his jacket off the third chair and shoves his arms into it so roughly it looks like it might tear. “I can’t be here right now,” he says, his voice a normal volume, but it’s so muted and controlled compared to his shout that it sounds like a whisper. Without another word, he leaves, slamming the door behind him.

Dean glares at the door and wonders when he had stood up from the bed. He stays standing there for a long time, and then he hears a quiet rustle of clothing and remembers that Cas is still there.

“Are you going to yell at me, too?” Dean snarls, eyes still on the door. Sam will come back. He has to. It seemed so simple before, when he wanted him to leave; now he feels Sam’s absence like another hole in his gut.

“No,” says Cas, and Dean clenches his fists. He can’t bear to turn around and face Cas.

Cain’s words come back to him then: _And then you’d kill the angel. Castiel. Now, that one—that, I suspect, would hurt something awful_.

Dean drags a hand over his face. It shouldn’t hurt so much. This is what he wanted. He _wanted_ Sam to get mad, _wanted_ to push him away. Sure, it might hurt Sam, if the agonized expression when he yelled that he still loves his fuckup of a brother is any indication, but that’s better than what Dean is capable of. It’s better for him to leave.

But fuck, it hurts. And now he’s going to do the same to Cas. He’s been enough of a disappointment—some Righteous Man he turned out to be, Cas probably rightfully regrets dragging his ass out of hell—and he’s gotta save Cas from himself. And it’ll hurt, _fuck_ , it’s going to _hurt_ , because that’s all he’s fucking good at. He always hurts the people he cares about. Killing and hurting, and he’ll be damned ( _he is damned_ ) if he drags them down any further with him. He hates it, but he’ll push them away, to save them, to—

“Dean, Dean, it’s okay,” Cas is saying, too close, right in Dean’s ear, and Dean becomes aware of Cas’s hands on his back and chest holding him up, of the hard motel floor under his knees, of the harsh gasps of his own breath. “Sam is coming back. It’s okay.”

“Fuck,” Dean tries to say, but he can’t get the word out. His throat is constricting and his head aches. He leans over and curls over his knees to breathe between them and rest his forehead on the floor. Cas’s hand is firm on his back, and Dean hates that he’s here, seeing him like this. He isn’t supposed to know. No one is supposed to know. He’s fucking up bad, letting them see this. He’s supposed to be strong for Sammy. He’s supposed to be the Righteous Man.

“Keep it together, Winchester,” he tries to tell himself, and it comes out in a choked murmur. “Keep it together.”

Cas just kneels next to him on the floor, hand on his back, saying nothing, and Dean can’t decide if he’s glad Cas is around or if he wishes he would just finally give up on Dean.

 

* * *

 

 

The ride back to the bunker after they wrap up the case (because Sam _does_ come back, and then they all go out to the farm and Sam gets the kill) is quiet. Cas has given in and is letting Dean play his Metallica tape, but he’s got the sound turned down so that “Fade to Black” can only be heard faintly through the Continental’s old fuzzy speakers. Dean has a headache that’s been slowly pounding its way into taking over his brain, like it’s playing Risk and slowly claiming more territory. He presses his temple against the cool glass of the window. The jostling of the car rattles his brain, but he figures it can’t get much worse.

Every once in a while, Sam or Cas attempt to engage him in conversation, and Dean just grunts out answers or pretends to be asleep, too exhausted to even try to piss them off.

He snoozes for a while, and when he next comes to, he hears Sam’s voice, but only catches the end of what he’s saying.

“So what do we do, Cas?” asks Sam, and Dean can tell from the closeness of his voice, despite the soft query, that he’s leaning forward over the front bench.

Cas doesn’t answer for a long time, and then he takes a deep steadying breath. “I don’t know.”

“Can’t you talk to him and—”

“It wouldn’t work, Sam,” says Cas resignedly. “Your brother is adamantly resistant to discussing—”

“You don’t know that,” says Sam, and when Cas doesn’t respond, he sits back with a sigh. “Yeah,” he admits, probably running a hand through his stupid hair.

They’re quiet again, and after a few minutes, Dean figures it’s safe to stir. Cas glances at him and pulls off the highway for lunch. He orders Dean a slice of pie, which is nice of him, too nice of him after everything. Dean is too tired to reject the gesture, but he also can’t enjoy it. It tastes like ash in his mouth, and he really tries to finish it, but he leaves half of it uneaten. Cas puts the rest in a to-go box and sets it on the seat between them, almost stubbornly.

They get back to the bunker just as the sun is setting, and the moment they step in, they hear the high-pitched blaring of a phone.

“I’ll get it,” says Sam, dropping his duffle on the floor and heading for the box of phones they left on the war room table. He takes a quick glance at the business card and then answers it while Dean and Cas drop their bags, too.

“Federal Bureau of Investigation, this is Agent Smith,” says Sam, and after a moment, he frowns. “Who is this? How did you get this number?”

Dean stiffens, and Sam blinks, taken aback. He probably just got called an assbutt.

“Yeah, hold on,” says Sam, recovering quickly, and he glances at Dean and moves to sit at the war room table, gesturing for Dean to do the same. Cas tilts his head curiously and joins them, and Sam moves the phone from his ear, presses a button, and sets it on the center of the table.

“Okay, Marie, you’re on speaker,” says Sam.

“Okay, _finally_ ,” says Marie, sighing long-sufferingly. “I’ve been trying to call _all day_. I have something to show you.”

Sam frowns down at the phone and glances at Dean again, which tells Dean that he’s taking this all so well in stride because he figured out that Dean’s been talking to _someone_ and he’s easily put the pieces together.

“What is it?” asks Sam.

“I have to _show_ you,” Marie repeats. “Can we Skype?”

“Who is this?” asks Cas, squinting at Dean and Sam in confusion.

“She wrote that musical,” Dean tells him, and Cas tilts his head. “The one about us. At that high school, the Calliope case.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Wait, who’s that?” asks Marie.

“That’s Cas,” says Sam.

“Hello, Marie,” says Cas, leaning toward the phone. “I regret being unable to see your production about the Winchester Gospels.”

“Oh, it was just fanfiction,” she says, but she sounds pleased. “And wow, holy gravelly voice, Batman.”

Cas’s squint intensifies. “What?”

“What do you want, Marie?” Dean interrupts.

“Skype with me,” she says.

“ _Why?_ ”

“You’ll see,” she sing-songs, and at their unamused silence, she sighs and says, “It’s about Baby. Just Skype me.”

“Okay,” Sam agrees, to Dean’s surprise. “Hold on.” He goes to his duffle and digs out his tablet, and Dean stares at him incredulously. Sam shrugs when he notices. “It’s the only lead we’ve got, Dean,” he whispers. “And Marie is harmless.”

“She could write more fanfiction about us,” Dean hisses. “How is that harmless?”

“I _do_ write fanfiction about you guys,” says Marie, and Dean jumps, because he’d meant to be quieter. “But it’s mostly gen case fics, if that makes you feel better.”

It doesn’t, but Sam doesn’t give him the chance to say so. He asks Marie for her username, and then Marie hangs up and Sam presses the call button on his tablet. The line rings for a while and then stops and Marie’s face comes into view. For a moment, she just looks at the screen, as though waiting, and then the little frame showing Sam’s face pops up and she grins.

“Hi, Sam!” she says cheerfully, waving.

Sam smiles back. “Hey, Marie. How’s college?”

“ _Awesome_ ,” she says, eyes wide. “Oh my God, _so_ awesome. But where are you? What’s that behind you?”

Sam glances back. It’s the huge electronic map on the wall that Charlie had rigged up to track demonic activity back in the day. It probably looks pretty impressive.

Sam turns to grin at the screen of his tablet. “We have a secret base now.”

“WHAT?”

Sam laughs, and Dean’s glad he finds this whole thing amusing, given they don’t really want anyone to know where they are, much less have Supernatural fans know where they are.

“Where?” Marie demands.

“Well, that’s the thing about secret bases, Marie…”

“Okay, okay,” she says, flapping a hand. “But let the record show that I really want a full tour.”

“We’ll be sure to include it in the transcription,” says Sam.

“Wait, where’s Dean?”

“He’s here,” says Sam, and he angles the screen toward Dean and grabs Dean’s arm when he tries to sidle away. Dean forces a smile and waves at the screen. “Wanna see Cas, too?” asks Sam, because Marie opens her mouth and looks like she’s about to ask, and when she nods fervently, Sam gestures for Cas to come around to his other side. Cas walks around behind Dean and Sam and crouches down next to Sam’s shoulder to peer at the screen.

“What do I—” Cas begins.

“The camera’s here,” says Sam, tapping next to the small round hole where the camera is, and Cas’s eyes flick to it as Sam angles the tablet toward him now. Dean falls back into a chair, relieved that at least it’s off him now.

“Hello, Marie,” says Cas.

“Hi, Castiel!” she says excitedly. “Nice to meet you! Carver Edlund really wasn’t kidding about the dreaminess.”

“Um,” says Cas, shifting uncomfortably and pulling up a chair, too. “Thank you, I guess.”

“Can we get down to business?” Dean complains loudly.

Sam and Cas shoot him identical annoyed looks, but he’s really not in the mood to humor fangirls and give Marie anymore fuel for her fanfiction.

“Right, okay,” says Marie, drawing herself up importantly on the screen. “Just a second.” She seems to stand up and start walking, keeping the camera on herself. As she walks, the lighting changes a few times, and the background goes from light to dark. “Okay, so I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do about Baby, and I think I’ve figured out a solution. But first, I need to introduce you to someone.” She stops and there’s the sound of a door opening, and then it’s dark. She turns on a light and the screen flashes with the sudden bright fluorescent light. She waits for the screen to adjust and then draws herself up again.

“Okay, so this,” she says, turning the camera on her device away from herself with a dramatic flourish, “is _my_ Baby.”

And there it is—a ’68 Impala, black, sitting in what looks like a two-car garage. Marie moves the camera a little to get the full view.

“Looks nice, Marie,” says Dean, even though it sort of makes his chest hurt to look at it.

“Thanks!” Marie’s face reappears in the screen. “My dad’s friend restored it. She runs great. It’s a really nice car, I can see why you like it.”

Dean swallows and nods, and Marie starts to move again.

“And these,” she says, and there’s a creak and then the camera turns again, “are my Baby’s insides.”

Dean stares helplessly at the pristine engine inside of Marie’s car. He kind of wants to throw up.

Sam compliments her this time, and Marie finally flips her screen around again, looking nervous.

“So I don’t know much about cars,” she says, biting her lip, “but will it work?”

Sam furrows his brow. “Uh… Will what work?”

“The engine,” says Marie. “Will it work in Baby? Your Baby,” she clarifies.

Sam’s jaw drops open and he glances at Dean, but Dean can’t even move. His brain has stalled.

“Marie,” says Sam softly, turning back to the screen, “we can’t… _take_ your engine.”

She huffs. “You’re not _taking_ it,” she says. “I’m selling it to you.”

“But that’s your _car_ ,” Sam argues. “How are you going to get around without it?”

“You didn’t have a car at Stanford,” Marie points out. “And I’ll figure something out. Honestly,” she says, her eyes flicking to Dean’s side of the screen, “I know this is practically, like, blasphemy, but I was thinking of asking my dad to put a hybrid engine in her. I _really_ can’t afford the gas.”

“You’re right, that is blasphemy,” says Dean gruffly, and Sam looks at him in surprise. “What happened to not douching up the Impala?”

“Hey, college kid’s gotta eat,” she says, shrugging. “So what do you think? Want to buy my engine?” When Sam visibly hesitates, she adds, “You haven’t had any other offers. This is your best chance at fixing Baby.”

Sam huffs through his nose. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he says. “You don’t even know us.”

Marie smiles a little apologetically. “I mean, I kinda do,” she says. “And if I can help make sure the beloved car from my favorite book series keeps running… Well, that’s important to me. _Baby_ is important. I’m sure other fans would agree. I want to do this,” she says firmly, when Sam is about to protest. “Let me help you.”

Sam closes his mouth, and after a few seconds, he sets his jaw and nods.

“How much do you want for it?” he asks.

So that’s it then. They’re going to fix Baby. Dean should be grateful. He should feel relieved.

He stands up and leaves the room.

His feet carry him automatically through the bunker, and he’s halfway down the hall to the garage when he realizes he can’t face her. It’s not fair, but he can’t. They’re going to fix her, but it’s his fault she’s broken in the first place and he…

_I’m poison_.

They’re going to fix her. She’s going to be all right.

So why does he still feel so hollow?

He doesn’t know how he got there, but when he comes back to himself, he’s sitting on his bed with his fingers gripping his hair. He’s losing time again, like when he had the Mark and he would come back with blood on his hands and no certainty about what he had killed, only the vague feeling that it felt _good_. On hunts, the red would fade from his eyes and the monster of the week would be dead and he wouldn’t remember killing it, even when Sam implied he did, and all he could remember was that it _felt good_.

He hasn’t felt good in a long time.

There is a knock on his door, but he can’t move. He’s a black hole, just empty and immobile and _poison_ and he doesn’t want anyone else to get sucked in. And now Marie has been. He didn’t want Sam and Cas to know in the first place. He just wants to be left alone to fall apart like he deserves, without bringing them down with him. What don’t they understand about that?

“Dean,” says Cas on the other side of the door, “may I come in?”

Dean runs a hand over his face. _No_ , he wants to say. It would be the right thing to say. Dean has sucked at doing the right thing lately. Or maybe he’s always sucked at it.

“What is it, Cas?” Dean calls, and his voice cracks. Or maybe he cracks, is cracking, fault lines fracturing all over until another piece of him might drop away like how everyone always wishes California would fall into the ocean. He used to wish that, when Sam left for Stanford. Selfishly, because then Sam would be trapped in the life, and he always wanted to get out. Dean is so goddamn selfish. And he can’t even figure out what he wants, so he just keeps stringing them all along. He wants Sam to be free; he doesn’t want to let Sam go. He’s so fucking selfish.

Cas opens the door and stands at the threshold, his shadow falling into the rectangle of light made by the doorway on the floor. Dean wants him to stay there, in the light, where Cas belongs; he wants him to stay with him. He’s so fucking selfish.

Dean doesn’t look up, can’t look up, and he keeps his eyes on the floor between his boots. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if he met Cas’s eyes. He couldn’t stand it.

“May I come in?” asks Cas again. There was a time when he wouldn’t even ask. He’d just fly into Dean’s space and stare. He’s so much more human now. That’s Dean’s fault, too.

“Do whatever you want, Cas,” says Dean around the lump in his throat.

Cas steps into the room, still a little uncertainly, and then he closes the door behind himself. Dean can feel his eyes on him and he hates it. He should have told Cas to fuck off. He’s probably going to ask how Dean is, and then Dean will lie and Cas will be disappointed and Dean can’t stand it. Why the fuck do they care when there’s nothing to care about?

Cas doesn’t say anything, though, and just comes over to sit on the bed next to Dean, probably a little too close, but not close enough to touch, so it’s okay. He sits there silently, and Dean rubs his hands over his face and then stares at the closed door. Cas looks around the room, and Dean’s brain feels heavy in his head with too much. It’s too much. He almost killed Cas, he was on a path to killing Sam, he killed so many people and it felt good and it wasn’t supposed to, isn’t supposed to, he’s supposed to be one of the good guys, the Righteous Man, a good soldier, Sam’s older brother, he’s supposed to take care of Sam and he can’t even take care of himself, fuck, he’s empty, empty, a shell of what he was, if he was ever anything. His body has been torn apart, his soul corrupted, his heart ripped out, and all that’s left are hands for killing and a body to attach those to.

After a few minutes, Cas finally speaks.

“This was never just about Baby, was it?” he says quietly.

And suddenly it’s all welling up too fast and he can’t swallow it down, and Dean wonders if this is what drowning feels like. He doesn’t know where this is coming from because he still feels empty. He tries to hold it back because maybe this is it, maybe this is the last of him, sweeping out like a tsunami, one that came in, destroyed everything, and rushed back out. Bye bye, California.

He bows his head and gasps for breath and he can’t catch it, so he leans over and puts his head between his knees.

“I just,” he tells the floor, still trying to regulate his breathing even though it’s pointless, his lungs aren’t working, nothing is, “I can’t—I don’t even know what I am anymore.”

He feels Cas’s hand land softly on his shoulder, always the left one, and it still stings.

“Please let us help you,” says Cas.

Everything in him screams no, because they shouldn’t have to take care of him. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

But then, nothing is.

Cas’s hand is still on his shoulder, and he’s not letting go any time soon.

Dean releases a shuddering breath and sits up to put his head in his hands. He nods.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”


End file.
